Art & Crafts

 I forgot to add these couple photos to my last post...

The last bit of color from my garden in this zinnia bouquet:

This pillow that I made a few weeks back from a quilt patch that my maternal grandmother made, and an old tablecloth from my paternal grandmother:

End of Summer

We have been having cool nights for the past several weeks.  It was lovely to leave the windows open to get the fresh air, until the minions arrived, those nasty stink bugs that swarm in absolutely EVERYWHERE!  So, the windows have stayed closed for the past week, and we gave in and had the house and garage sprayed last weekend.

The garden has a few more things growing, especially tomatoes.  I cooked a bunch of them up into pasta sauce today.

There are still pumpkins and butternut squash growing, along with kale and chard as well.  The pumpkin plant must be a pie pumpkin, as the squashes are fairly small.  In fact, I wasn't sure which would give me more space to carve, this little pumpkin or my giant tomato?

I had disappointing harvests of apples, pears and green beans this year.  I'm not sure what happened with the apples.  Most of the pear blossoms froze, and the rabbits are still getting into my garden somewhere and eating off my beans.

Just this past weekend, I was surprised to find a rose blooming in my flower garden!  This bed has been completely devastated by the deer this summer.  I didn't have any flowers after the spring ones.  You can see that everything behind it is eaten off.  I brought it in for safe keeping, and to enjoy its lovely fragrance.

Over Labor Day weekend, J couldn't come home, so we went up to Pittsburgh to spend the day with her.  We got to see her throwing some clay mugs at the studio she is interning at.  She also took us to both of her workplaces - an Asian grocery (where we used her employee discount to stock up our pantry) and a tea shop (where we enjoyed a pot of Moroccan Mint Tea.)  We went out for dinner and hung out at her apartment for a while.  It was nice to get a little glimpse of her life right now.

Early Fall is the time that I have to clean up the black walnuts out of the chicken yard.  We bought a used John Deere Trail Gator ("Ally") this summer, which made disposing of the walnuts super easy.  I just parked it outside of the chicken yard, dumped buckets full of the nuts into the bed, then backed it up to the woods and dumped it.  The young hens are still not laying, by the way.

This is also the time when I spray and weed around the house and the pool for the second time.  Here is before and after:

We never opened the pool this year and have decided to take it down next Spring.

And finally, for fun, I attended the Great Gatsby Gala Fundraiser at our local library with a friend.  I decided to forgo the gown from last year that made me somewhat uncomfortable all night and went with men's wear this year.  It was a fun time out with my friend.  AND I won another basket of goodies!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

In the Kitchen

I spent a lot of time this weekend in the kitchen.  I found myself with a bunch of tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, as well as a zucchini, and (once again) TOO MANY eggs.

This year I'm having the same issue with my cucumbers that I had several years ago:  they are very prolific, but because it has been dry, some of them are intensely bitter.  I thought I would have enough cukes to can some pickles, but half of them were inedible, so I started some refrigerator Bread & Butter pickles - they have to marinate for 24 hours before we can try them.

I also made some NY style pizza sauce that went into the freezer for later.

I baked 2 loaves of zucchini bread and made 3 quiches (2 ham and cheese for JP & myself and Mom & Dad) and one cheese pizza one for L and managed to use up 3 dozen and 1 eggs.

For dessert, I made "Train Wreck."  Train Wreck is like a messy trifle of my own creation.  I make it with layers of cake cubes, pudding, crushed candy/oreos/fruit, and whipped cream.  This one was angel food cake, chocolate pudding, crushed Skor bars and whipped cream.

Poor Stella had surgery on Thursday to remove a growth from her eyelid.  She doesn't want to leave it alone, so she is having to wear an Elizabethan Collar as well as socks on her hind feet.

She looks like a hybrid vacuum/dog:

Speaking of hybrids, JP and I finally went to look at a car yesterday (one month after losing the Subaru.)  We drove a Hybrid Hyundai Tucson.  It's a nice little car, and we were seriously considering it, but when we came back home and did a bit of research, it has a pretty poor reliability rating with Consumer Reports.  I think we will look at a plug in Hybrid Toyota Rav 4 later in the week.

That's about it for my weekend.  Time to go taste the quiche!

Vacation, Carnies, and All That Jazz...

Well, it has now been a week since we returned from our annual Erie vacation.  Once again, we had a lovely time at the beach...

J & L played in the sand...

I studied for my upcoming Board Exams

We rode our bikes.

We just finished our 13 + mile circumnavigation of
Presque Isle

We spent a rainy day at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center.

We discovered Asbury Woods, a wooded park over 200 acres in size with lots of developed trails.  We hiked for several hours, and played in the river, and found the "Grandmother Tree."

We got home full into County Fair season in town, so the girls and I took in the sights from the Ferris Wheel this week.

When we got home, I discovered that the garden was going crazy the entire time we were gone!  I have tomatoes and beans to can or freeze just about every other day!

Dill, turnips, tomatoes, tomatilloes

Wax beans, tomatoes, cucumbers

We have a week and a half until L goes to Chatham, and 2 weeks until J goes back to Bowling Green.  It's hard to believe!

Closed For the Season

Fall is slowing winding down into winter.  The first freeze is forecasted for tonight.  I think that this is the first year in a very long time that I actually had everything out of the garden ahead of time.  I went down and removed the last few cherry tomatoes and watermelon this afternoon.

I had been trying the give the watermelon extra time to ripen, but even though it weighed in at more than 8 1/2 lbs, it still wasn't ripe, so the chickens are currently enjoying it.

This is the latest that I have gotten the pool closed up for the winter.  The downside to this is that all the wet bits are sitting on the veranda in the cool, damp weather, and will take a long time to dry before I can finally put everything away in the barn.

I emptied out the potted plants outdoors and found this huge sweet potato from my ornamental sweet potato vine.  I am considering putting it in the curry that I have planned for dinner. There are a few of the pots that I bring into the garage for the winter, that will be in and out until it's finally too cold to stay outside, and I have starts of the coleus and silver falls vine in water in the kitchen window that I had outside which I would love to have for my planters next year.

Yesterday, JP and I put together these racks for split firewood and moved the remainder from last year in preparation for receiving more in the near future.  I think we are in good shape as far as winter prep goes.

And finally, the Fridge Facts for this week, the Wisdom Edition: